From oblivion to cusp of Sweet 16

Scott Drew rebuilt Baylor quickly

eyebrows were raised

March 19, 2010|By Brian Hamilton, Tribune reporter

NEW ORLEANS — From the Baylor locker room came a bellicose tribal beat, some unseen player pounding out a rhythm before heading to practice Friday. Over the din, Scott Drew was attempting to formulate coherent thoughts, so he called for a sound check.

"Hey Robert," the Bears coach said to a staffer, flashing a smile. "Can you have them stop banging for a second?"

It was the rare occasion that Drew passed on the possibility of knocking down doors. The former Valparaiso coach with the notable surname — son of Homer, brother of Bryce — has resurrected No. 3-seed Baylor from a basketball netherworld. A first-round NCAA tournament win Thursday was the program's first in 60 years.

And Drew was typically bright-eyed the day after, which may or may not wrench the innards of his peers. Either Drew is an Eddie Haskell-like figure or a hyper-aggressive shark working on the fringes of the rulebook, or maybe a bit of both.

Either way he has upset the apple cart and, justified or not, the blowback is predictable.

"Any time a team or a school comes into success, it's going to raise a lot of eyebrows or attention — are they for real, why were they successful, how are they able to do it?" Drew said.

It seems fair to say Drew has rebuilt Baylor without heeding to what most thought Baylor SHOULD do. The program, beset by tragedy and the grave missteps of the Dave Bliss era, was at its nadir when Drew arrived in 2003. Not until 2006-07 did the Bears play a full schedule with a full allotment of scholarships.

Nevertheless, Drew recruited current point guard Tweety Carter, a McDonald's All-American. Carter was followed by touted recruit LaceDarius Dunn, now the Bears' leading scorer. Drew's first three recruiting classes were top-25 caliber.

"Any time you have a coach that believes in you and believes you can win every game, you always have a great feel for him and always want to be a part of his team," Carter said.

Added Dunn: "I wouldn't trade him for nothing."

Eyebrows have been raised along the way. Baylor hired John Wall's AAU coach to its staff, a tiptoe-the-line move if ever there was one. Drew pulled his team off the floor at Allen Fieldhouse in January during Kansas' pregame intros to preempt the atmosphere overwhelming them.

But then there's his team's Academic Progress Report rating of 989, bettered by only three teams in the NCAA tournament field. Now, Baylor plays No. 11-seed Old Dominion for a spot in the Sweet 16 in Houston, which Drew called "a dream come true for a lot of people."

"When we first started bringing in recruits, they were good players, we just didn't have enough numbers," Drew said. "So it just took time for those players to get enough teammates around them and get enough experience where you could have three straight 20-win seasons."

From oblivion to the cusp of the Sweet 16 in seven years. No wonder people wonder.